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HONOR X7a Hands-on Review

HONOR X7a

With HONOR's return to the Philippines a few months ago, the brand has been steadily rolling out new smartphone models across all price points, from flagship to midrange to budget options like the new HONOR X7a.

HONOR X7a

Following the success of the wildly popular HONOR X9a 5G smartphone, the brand released the HONOR X7a, a more budget-friendly option with a similar elegant design and longer battery life.

HONOR X7a Specs

Android 12, Magic UI 6.1
6.74-inch HD+ IPS display, 1600 x 720 pixel resolution, ~260ppi
90Hz refresh rate
2.3GHz MediaTek Helio G37 octa-core processor
IMG PowerVR GE8320 GPU
6GB RAM
128GB ROM, expandable via microSD up to 1TB
50MP + 5MP ultra-wide + 2MP depth + 2MP macro rear cameras, LED flash
8MP selfie camera
Side-mounted fingerprint scanner
Face unlock
Headphone jack, single loudspeaker
Dual SIM, Dual Standby
4G LTE
WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band
Bluetooth 5.1
GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, and BDS
USB Type-C
6,000mAh battery, 22.5W HONOR SuperCharge
Colors: Midnight Black, Ocean Blue, and Titanium Silver
196g

Design and Build Quality
The HONOR X7a is a sizable phone, measuring 76.85mm in width, and it weighs in at 196g, but its ergonomic design and 8.27mm slim body make it comfortable to hold and use.

HONOR X7a

It comes in standard HONOR packaging with the usual accessories included in the box, such as the USB cable, SIM ejector pin, clear case, 22.5W charger, and some paper materials.

HONOR X7a

It's available in Midnight Black, Ocean Blue, and Titanium Silver, and the one we have is Ocean Blue. The design appears stylish and modern. Yet it lacks the wow factor to stand out from the crowd. Despite the frosted finish, the glossy, glass-like back panel is susceptible to fingerprints. Still, it's one of the nicer-looking phones in its price category.

HONOR X7a

At the back, there is a quad camera setup, with a 50-megapixel (f/1.8) main sensor, a 5-megapixel ultra-wide lens, a 2-megapixel depth sensor, a 2-megapixel macro lens, and an LED flashlight. There's also the "Honor" branding at the lower part. It appears to feature a huge camera sensor due to the size of the camera housing.

HONOR X7a

On the phone's right side are the volume controls and the power button, which doubles as a fingerprint scanner. The buttons give good tactile feedback, and the fingerprint scanner unlocks the phone quickly and efficiently.

HONOR X7a

The hybrid SIM tray is located on the top and can hold two nano SIM cards or one SIM card and one microSD card. The bottom of the phone houses the usual 3.5mm headphone jack, primary microphone, USB Type-C port, and loudspeaker.

Display and Sound Quality
The large 6.74-inch IPS display, which has a high refresh rate of 90 Hz and a 20:9 aspect ratio, and minimal bezels take up the majority of the front of the phone. It's also one of the main features of the HONOR X7a.

HONOR X7a

The viewing angles on the display are good, and the colors are vibrant, but they lack sharpness. Still, we enjoy the phone's large screen size. So it makes watching videos more entertaining. The 90Hz refresh rate is meant to make scrolling and animations feel smoother, but this feature is barely noticeable with its underwhelming chipset.

Even though it's not the clearest, the bottom speaker has a good volume and decent clarity for the price. However, for a more immersive listening experience, using earphones is much better; fortunately, the Honor X7a comes with a free pair of wireless Honor earbuds.

Performance
The Honor X7a is powered by a MediaTek Helio G37 octa-core chipset, which is an entry-level ARM SoC that provides a good balance between performance and power efficiency. The phone comes with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage, which should be enough for most users.

The Honor X7a performance is sufficient for everyday use. While app loading times and multitasking are good, lag is noticeable, especially when playing more resource-intensive games. The phone is only capable of 4G connectivity, which delivers sufficient download and upload speeds when available.

HONOR X7a

Below is how the Honor X7a scores on major benchmarking apps:

AnTuTu v9.5.6 - 129,650
Geekbench 6: Single Core - 194 / Multi-core - 816
3DMark: sling Shot - 727 / Sling Shot Extreme - 414
Geekbench ML: TensorFlow Lite CPU score - 71
PC Benchmark for Android: Work 3.0 - 5,553

When playing games, such as the widely played shooter game Call of Duty Mobile, the game can only be enjoyed on medium to low graphics settings. Gameplay isn't as smooth as we'd hoped, but if you stick with the default settings, it's still enjoyable.

As for wireless connectivity, it only supports 4G LTE, which worked very well since it's widely available across the country. Moreover, dual-band WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 5.1 connectivity are excellent with no connection drops.

Magic UI 6.1
Out of the box, it runs on Magic UI 6.1, which is based on Android 12. We hope that HONOR will soon release an update to bring the phone up to speed with the latest version of Magic UI, version 7, which is based on Android 13.

HONOR X7a

The HONOR Magic UI 6.0 has a new look and feel with a streamlined interface, updated icons, and refreshed animations. 

HONOR X7a

The new layout is cleaner and more visually appealing. It includes system optimization that ensures its efficient performance.

50MP Camera
Another key feature of the Honor X7a is its quad camera setup, which includes a 50-megapixel (f/1.8) main sensor, a 5-megapixel (f/2.2) ultra-wide lens, a 2-megapixel (f/2.4) depth sensor, and a 2-megapixel (f/2.4) macro lens.

HONOR X7a

The camera app is user-friendly and provides an extensive set of shooting modes, including aperture, portrait mode, Super Macor, and AI scene detection.

HONOR X7a

In good lighting conditions, the main camera delivers good, detailed images with decent colors, acceptable sharpness, and adequate dynamic range, but nothing exceptional. 

HONOR X7a

The ultra-wide-angle camera is likewise fairly decent, however, images can occasionally be degraded by distortion and blurry edges. In low-light situations, the primary camera suffers, resulting in photos that are often grainy and lacking in detail.

HONOR X7a-sample10

Checkout the sample photos here: https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjAu5ud

The 8-megapixel front-facing camera takes good selfies, but most of the time there aren't enough details and sharpness. Still, photos taken with the selfie camera are still worthy of being shared on social media. It also performs well for online classes and virtual meetings if used in well-lit settings.

Battery
The Honor X7a key selling point is its large 6000mAh battery, which provides excellent battery life. With moderate use, it can easily last for 3 days and still have some charge left over, it also supports 22.5W fast charging.

HONOR X7a

The Honor X7a battery has the most impressive battery life of all the smartphones we had a chance to review. It was able to stay on the screen for 18 hours and 55 minutes on the PCMark battery test.

With the 22.5W HONOR SuperCharge adapter that comes with the package, it takes about 2 hours and 37 minutes to fully charge the battery from 10% capacity.

PROS
Nice stylish design
Good built quality
Large display
Good performance
Excellent battery life 

CONS
Underpowered processor
Cameras needs improvement
Only 4G LTE

Verdict
The HONOR X7a is an affordable smartphone that offers good value. The performance is acceptable, but it still feels underpowered, and navigating between apps is not particularly seamless. With a large display, a decent primary camera, an attractive, simple design, a long battery life, and a reasonable price, it is certainly worth considering as your next smartphone buy.

The HONOR X7a is priced at ₱7,990 and comes with free HONOR Earbuds worth ₱1,590 when you buy from February 22 to 28, 2023.
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